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Tips for Success
in the Inspection Business
Get a Great Internet Domain Name
By George Wells
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Having - and using
- a great domain name
Having - and using
- a great domain name is an inexpensive and very effective marketing strategy.
A growing number of your potential customers are looking to the Internet for
services. Even if your potential customers find you elsewhere or are given your
name as a referral, they are very likely to check you out on the Internet. Or –
I should say – they will TRY to check you out on the Internet.
The trouble is that many
inspectors either do not have a place on the Internet, the address is too
difficult to type, or they have a good address and don’t use it to its full
potential.
Obtaining a domain
name
Obtaining a domain name
is easy enough for most people to be able to handle it on their own but they
have trouble finding a good name. The reason is simple: Most of the good names
are already taken. It is not uncommon for someone looking for a previously
unregistered name on services such as
www.RedDomains.com to assume that because
they can’t find names by searching for previously unregistered names, that a
suitable name is not available. Domain names are bought and sold just as any
other commodity is bought and sold. There are sources for great domain names on
the aftermarket. BestInspectors.Net is one such source. BestInspectors.Net
specializes in domain names that are easy to remember, easy to type, and easy to
pronounce.
Start by looking at
previously unregistered domains at a reputable Domain registrar such as
www.RedDomains.com. If you are fortunate enough to find a good domain name,
you can register it for less than $10.
RedDomains.com
charges only $8.75 to register a domain name.
What you don’t
want
What you don’t want is a
name like this: “bobsmithshomeinspectioncompanyofatlantageorgia.com” Most home
inspectors are not going to have a name that long but, you get the idea. There
are lots of opportunities to type a long name incorrectly. Most of your
potential customers are not likely to make more than two attempts to find your
web site. What’s worse is when they send an e-mail to you but don’t realize
that it isn’t going to arrive because of a typing error.
Premium domain
names
Look for a name that is
short, memorable, easy to type, and easy to pronounce. Premium domain names on
the aftermarket are probably going to cost anywhere from around $75 to as much
as a couple of thousand dollars. You should be able to find a very good premium
domain name for less than $200.
The part of the name
after the dot is called the Top Level Domain (TLD). Domain are often
purchased in pairs or complete TLD sets. BestInspectors.Net is our primary
domain name but if you type in BestInspectors.com, BestInspectors.org,
BestInspectors.info, BestInspectors.biz or BestInspectors.us you will find us.
It isn't necessary to have all the popular TLD's but it can help you protect
your identity. Having all the available TLD's is not as important to local
companies as it is to national companies. Let's say that you are in Las
Vegas and have WhiteGloveInspection.net. Another inspector in Detroit has
WhiteGloveInspection.com. You obviously will not lose business to one
another. I would suggest that one contact the other and ask to put
reciprocal links in each web site. The person in Las Vegas could have a
link that says "Looking for White Glove Inspection in Detroit, click here" and
vice versa.
Three character .com
domain names have been very rare for many years. Don’t expect to find any three
character .com domain for less than $1,000. Three character .net and four
character .com domain names are becoming extremely rare very quickly. It is
still possible to find a three character .net name or a four character .com name
for less than $100 but they are disappearing fast.
Domain names that make
good use of the words “home”, “Inspection”, or “Inspector” are in short supply
but if you can find one for less than $100 you should grab it. It will be the
best $100 you can spend on your business. If you can find a great name like
B1st.com (appraised value $96,810!), Asheville-Home.com, wgfc.com (appraised
value $4,960) AustinHomesPro.com (appraised value $1,196), or AZ-Inspections.com,
for a couple of hundred dollars or less, you should grab it while it is
available. Imagine being in an area like Asheville, NC and having the domain
name “Asheville-Home.com”. You would probably be the one inspector everyone
would remember!
If you have something
specific in mind, let BestInspectors.Net look for you. In addition to its own
inventory of premium domain names, BestInspectors.Net has access to a large
selection of domain names available on the domain name aftermarket that are not
available to the general public.
If you’d like some help
acquiring a suitable domain name but are having some trouble finding one, write
to me with the key attributes that you are looking for and your budget. I’ll do
my best to help you find a good name.
OK, so you already
have a great domain name
So Use it!
OK, so you already have
a great domain name. Let’s say for example you have a great domain name such as
Hometrex.com (By the way, a name can’t get much better than HomeTrex.com). Use
it! Sure, you may already have a web site – And if you don’t, shame on you!
But, are you using it for your e-mail? Wouldn’t you much rather have an email
address such as
bob@HomeTrex.com than
bob@aol.com or bob@hotmail.com? Almost all web hosting plans include
e-mail. Even so, it seems that more home inspectors use the less desirable,
much less professional looking, and certainly much less reliable free e-mail
services. There are some instances where using one of these services is the
more desirable alternative but for most home inspectors, it is a better choice
to use your own private domain. Using your own domain will give you a far more
professional appearance. Most of the free services or services provided by the
large discount ISP’s also have strict limitations and aggressive spam filters
that can prevent you from sending and receiving important e-mail.
I wish you much success!
George
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